


Stop a Spear, Catch a Sun

by Ramzes



Series: Night So Dark and Star So Pale [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 10:45:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13832535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: The turn came when Arthur least expected it. When he changed, Elia's response started changing as well.





	Stop a Spear, Catch a Sun

After his initial excitement went away, Arthur was left with the question what he could do with this piece of news. It felt very nice to know that he was the only man Elia could have in her bed with joy but she did not invite him there, exactly. He only had the comfort of knowing that she did not invite anyone else either, which, after the first week, turned out to be quite scarce.

Until he came up with a way to _use_ this information somehow, he used this information to get things clear with his squire. In truth, he was quite furious that he had let a boy Perros’ age make a fool  out of him. He should have listened to what Santagar had to say, instead of assuming that the man was just trying to excuse his failures. Santagar had seen many knights and squire practice and he could tell genuine flaws from mere refusal to learn. Arthur should have thought about this earlier…

When he now took Perros to the practice yard, he could actually see the effort the boy applied to keep himself from learning the spear and the sword. Not all arms – just these two. It was not hard for Arthur to guess why – Arel had always bested him with a spear quite easily and the fact that he was called the Sword of the Morning kind of explained the sword part.

In truth, it made him sad. The boy used the obstinacy he had gotten from both of his parents to prove that he was as different from House Dayne as possible. Arthur could imagine how he had come to know. Dorne was a better place for bastards than any other of the kingdoms but the jeers and the speculations on women’s morals were not strangers to his homeland either.

Anyway, he had a task ahead of him. And when it was time for him to take his shift, shortly after the end of a practice that had been twice as long as was common, he said kindly, “We’ll return here as soon as I’m relieved. We won’t move from here until you master the foundations. We’ll be here all day, every day…”

Perros did not believe him. But Arthur was not jesting. All through the next week, they fought stubbornness for stubbornness. Arthur was eerily reminded of his own determination at this age. Only, his has been directed at becoming better, not staying mediocre.

“Not everyone can be as good as you, Ser,” the boy said complacently at the end of the week, seeing Arthur’s irritation.

“I’m sorry but you’ll have to try,” Arthur replied. Ironically, this boy who did not like him at all made him feel more like a member of House Dayne than he had in years. Perros did not discriminate in his dislike.

What a strange thing life was! Arthur could never father a child of his own; Arel could never acknowledge the one he had; the rumour that Ashara had had one and lost it was spreading like a wildfire, although no one dared say it to Arthur’s face and he had a hard time finding out who, exactly, was the source of this calumny, so he could kill him. If it was him at all. It likely was, else Elia and Larra would have taken care a long time ago – and he had not heard of any lady of note losing her place at court or something. And now, this boy with their blood was so determined to deny it that he rejected any ability that he might have. The thought that Perros hated Arel so much made Arthur sad.

About two weeks into this competition of wills, the boy seemed to grasp that Arthur was not jesting. His mastery made such a sudden leap that Aaron Santagar graciously agreed to take him in. As if Arthur would agree now! “He’s staying with me,” he said curtly. “I’m quite sure I can teach him the sword just as well as you and my brother will help with the spear.”

Santagar quirked an eyebrow. “If you say,” he said. Did all of Dorne knew about Perros’ dislike of them already? Even these Dornish who lived away from their land?

In the White Sword Tower, Mors Blackmont smiled when he heard the story – it had arrived before Arthur had. “Well done,” he said. Lately, he had started looking at Arthur with more warmth and Arthur suspected he knew the reason. Mors must have tried to knock sense into the boy and failed. The other Kingsguard looked dubious but at least they did not want to raise the tension by publicly stating that they doubted just how much success Arthur would achieve.

Arel heard the ask stony-faced. “I’m afraid your squire doesn’t find me a good example to emulate,” he said. “You’d better ask Prince Oberyn or someone else.”

“I don’t want Oberyn,” Arthur said sharply. “I want you.”

He wasn’t sure just how much Arel cared for the boy but there was something behind this lack of expression. It was not a composed face. It was the mask Arthur had seen when there was something that needed to be hidden, at all cost. Suddenly, stopping the spear of a boy’s not unfounded but entirely harmful enmity became even more important.

This new task that he had given himself did not leave him much time to think about the problem with Elia, so he was taken aback when she started giving him longer looks. Considering him. There was a soft glow in her eyes that he had not seen since the first days of her wedding to Rhaegar – when she had started falling in love with him without realizing it. As if he was someone that she did not associate with betrayal and distrust but something… else. He did not know what.

“Thank you,” she told him one night when he walked her back after her untimely leaving of the evening feast to read the documents that she had not finished earlier. “Larra is very grateful and I love watching her like this.”

“It’s nothing,” he said and decided to take advantage of her good disposition towards him to make some things clear in his own head. “Elia, for how long has you known?”

She invited him to her solar where there was a smaller chance of being overheard. “Since the very beginning. Since Larra and I counted days and dates, trying to calculate if she had gotten her wish to get with child before the wedding. She had already decided that the day of the wedding would mean an end to their affair but she wanted one last thing from him – a child borne out of love, something of him left with her. A child she could love. Of course, when Jynessa was born, later, she realized how foolish she had been. One doesn’t love her children depending on how much she loves their father. It was the notion of a naïve girl but at the time, we both thought it was so very important.”

Arthur swallowed, the memory of a tower in Dorne springing to his mind. Rhaegar had been talking about a child of love – and he had not been a girl of sixteen. Of course, Lyanna Stark had been thrilled. The casual cruelty of the scene – not of Lady Lyanna’s making – struck him now, for the first time.

But Elia was not looking at him. She was not thinking of Rhaegar at all. Instead, her eyes were distant and her thoughts, turned to the past. “Somehow, in all our calculations, we failed to take into account the possibility that the child would look like Arel. It wasn’t this evident in the beginning but later, Shanai also saw the resemblance. Larra still has no idea who has told Perros but whoever they are, I wouldn’t want to be in their place when she finds out… She’s so happy that you have broken his resolve. Perhaps over time, you’ll be able to break his antipathy as well – and they’ll all be the better for this.”

Arthur stared at her, unable to open his mouth, unable to say a word. The truth crashed over him with the lightning of the evident, the what-he-should-have-known-but-had-not. He had turned healing Elia into his sole objective – and thus had sabotaged his own efforts. Elia did not – had not – wanted to be everything for him.  She valued her friends, her family, and the people in her life. She could never trust a man who cared for one thing in his life and no others at all, because other people mattered. Could he have trusted her if she had only seen him and nothing else? Could he have loved her in the first place? Never. Elia had already seen him have a sole focus before, and she had been hurt by his actions. Why had he ever thought that turning his back to everything else and everyone else again would win him her trust? To Elia, it would not have mattered that it was because of her. It _had_ not mattered.

When she had seen him change, her response had started changing.

Elia had stopped talking, he realized. There was a slight blush on her cheeks. “I have to start working,” she said, a little self-consciously. “I’m afraid I’ve been talking too much.”

Arthur rose in obedience. She would not look at him, realizing that she had given herself away. He smiled a little sadly and a little hopefully. “It’s strange to think that if you were not who and what you are and I was not a Kingsguard, we could have parted with a single, “See you tomorrow”.

Elia hesitated, clasped her hands, turned not just her eyes but her head away. Then, her shoulders straightened. She rose, came to him, looked him in the eye. And smiled. “You mean that now, we cannot?”

For a moment, he thought she would kiss him. She did not. She just stood on tiptoe and her breath enveloped him with night, and relief, and a little Dornish red. “See you tomorrow.”

* * *

 

 

 

**The End**

 


End file.
